The hall of the Loomguard was nothing like Corin imagined.
He had expected a fortress. Stone walls. Cold steel. Robed figures whispering spells into black mirrors. But what stood before him now was... a tavern.
Or at least, it had once been one.
The Sign of the Bleeding Apple had long since lost its signboard. Its windows were bricked up from the inside, its chimney sealed, and the smell of mead had been replaced by that of old parchment, beeswax, and something faintly metallic—like blood or rust.
"This is it?" Corin asked, eyeing the warped door skeptically.
"This is what remains," Vermielle said.
She stepped forward and knocked—not in a rhythm, but in a pattern. Three quick, one slow, two steady. A heartbeat's stutter. The door groaned open.
Corin followed her inside.
The room beyond was dimly lit by glass jars filled with glowing thread—actual strands, caught mid-air, bottled like fireflies. Dozens of them floated on iron shelves, bathing the room in hues of green, violet, and faint gold.
A few people turned to look as they entered. Not many.
There were six.
Each was seated at their own table. Each one wore something different. A man in a butcher's apron sharpening a cleaver. A woman in a veil that covered her eyes and spilled smoke when she exhaled. A pale boy reading a book upside down, head tilted too far to one side. One sharpened knitting needles. One cleaned a rusted pistol. One stared at Corin like he was already dead.
"This," Vermielle said, "is what remains of Graymire's Loomguard Cell."
The veiled woman stood. "Another stray?"
"An Observer," Vermielle replied.
The room quieted.
The veiled woman walked toward Corin with the slow grace of someone used to being feared. Her hands were covered in gray silk gloves, stitched with symbols that made Corin's eyes itch. When she stopped in front of him, she tilted her head.
"How many Threads can you see, boy?"
Corin swallowed. "One. Maybe two. And only sometimes."
She reached forward and tapped the center of his forehead with a single gloved finger.
He felt nothing. But her lips curled faintly.
"He's real," she murmured.
Then louder: "We should test him."
Vermielle shook her head. "Not yet."
The woman turned. "He's no use to us until we know if he can survive a bind."
Corin finally found his voice. "A bind?"
"The moment your Thread becomes real," Vermielle said, "is the moment it binds back. It doesn't simply obey. It attaches. Defines. Limits."
The pale boy closed his book. "Some people bind their Threads and go mad. Some explode. Some forget their names."
The man with the cleaver spoke without looking up. "Most just scream. Loud."
Corin looked from one to the other. "And... if I refuse?"
The veiled woman smiled behind her veil. "Then you go back into the city and wait for the Threadborn to find you."
Corin's mouth felt dry.
"Choose," Vermielle said. "No one binds you but yourself."
He hesitated. Then reached into his coat and withdrew the silk-bound book.
As soon as it touched the air, the temperature dropped.
The jars flickered. The veiled woman stepped back. The boy flinched.
"What is that?" the woman hissed.
Vermielle stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "He brought the Loom with him."
"I didn't ask for it," Corin said. "It came to me."
Vermielle nodded slowly. "Then perhaps it's already begun."
She gestured toward the back room. A curtain hung there—black, woven with moving silver patterns. Corin stepped toward it.
"What's in there?" he asked.
"The Bindloom," Vermielle said. "The test."
The room beyond the curtain was small and circular.
Stone floor. A single iron chair in the center, surrounded by eight standing mirrors—each fogged, each humming faintly. Above them hung a metal frame like a giant spiderweb, and in the center, a single dangling thread of violet silk.
It pulsed like a heartbeat.
"The Bindloom does not lie," Vermielle said from behind him. "It will reflect what you carry. Not what you wish."
Corin stepped inside. The mirrors vibrated. The chair creaked slightly as he approached.
"Sit," Vermielle said.
He sat.
The door behind him sealed with a soft click.
The moment it did, the mirrors snapped into clarity.
Corin stared—not at his reflection, but at eight versions of himself.
Each one different.
In one, he wore noble clothes—rings, a sword, eyes sharp with pride. In another, he was older, hollow-eyed, a mask sewn to his skin. One showed him weeping. One showed him laughing as fire consumed a city. Another had no eyes. Another wore the crimson cloak of a Loomguard. Another stood bound in chains, Threads choking him. The last one smiled—but had no mouth at all.
Then the Bindloom dropped the thread.
It drifted downward, slow as ash in still air.
When it touched Corin's chest, there was no sound—just a shift. Like the world moved slightly sideways.
He felt heat. Cold. Pressure behind his eyes.
He screamed.
But not from pain.
From understanding.
He was five, standing outside the orphanage window, watching a woman walk away down the street. A thread bound them. It snapped.He was eight, stealing a loaf of bread and feeling guilt twist into joy. That moment spun into thread.He was ten, hiding from bullies, tracing chalk shapes into the stone floor—patterns that would later reappear in the Loom Book.He was fourteen, watching a man beat another in an alley, seeing the silver thread quiver near the attacker's heart, knowing it would snap... and it did.
Thread after thread pulled from his soul.
He saw them all.
Then—darkness.
Something vast stared back through him. A Loom. Infinite. Shifting. Woven not from silk, but from moments.
"We are the stitches. You are the needle."
Then it was gone.
When Corin awoke, he was lying on a cot in a side room.
His limbs shook. His chest ached. But when he lifted his hands, he saw them clearly:
Threads.
One golden. One gray. One faint echo of violet, humming just beneath his skin.
He could see them now, always—not just during moments of stress or fear.
They had bound to him.
Vermielle stood in the doorway.
"You survived."
"What... what happened in there?"
"You touched your truth. And it touched you back."
Corin sat up slowly. "What happens now?"
She stepped forward, tossing a bundle at his feet. It landed with a soft thud.
Inside: a black coat with threadwork insignia, fingerless gloves stitched with the Loomguard's mark, and a small badge—a spiderweb pattern carved into brass.
"You wear the thread now. You serve the thread now."
He picked up the coat. It was light. Warm. Too big. It didn't matter.
He was part of something now.
And somewhere deep in the back of his mind, a whisper stirred.
"To weave is to become. But never without cost."